


i want you to want me like i want you and she wants her

by zeitgeistofnow



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, Cheating, F/F, Haircuts, Making Out, Post-The Battle of the Labyrinth, and they're trying so hard, clarisse la rue is GAY and BUTCH and u cishetties can't take this from me, ish...... it be complicated and nothing i would be like yeah this is a dick move on their part, oof these girls are ANGRY and MEAN, she's not dating chris either like wtf rick, they talk about jealousy a lot, they're teenagers and they're figuring things out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-02-23 01:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23903890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeitgeistofnow/pseuds/zeitgeistofnow
Summary: summer after the battle of the labyrinth and everyone’s tired. every summer is just more of the same, this one is just worse than most. she keeps telling herself that. she’s gotten through so much and she can get through everything else she needs to get through. alone. god, annabeth knew, a little, that her dumb, mean ass wouldn’t be enough for percy, but it’s still hard to be presented with evidence. it kinda makes her want to punch a wall.clarisse la rue is back from the battle too, spending her time prowling around the camp like a caged animal. the everpresent glint of something mischievous is gone from her eyes, replaced by something sharper. she buzzed her hair a week after they all got back and it’s slowly growing out. looks unkempt and maybe the ares kids can deal with that, but it pisses annabeth off.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Clarisse La Rue, Clarisse La Rue/Selina Beauregard (mentioned)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 44





	i want you to want me like i want you and she wants her

Summer after the battle of the labyrinth and everyone’s tired. Annabeth does a lot of lying in her top bunk and squinting her eyes closed, trying not to dwell on how inferior she feels. Months of mourning, crying randomly in the showers, and Percy was with fucking Calypso the whole time. God, if that was what he wanted why didn’t he say something? Annabeth knew, a little, that her dumb, mean ass wouldn’t be enough for him, but it’s still hard to be presented with evidence. It kinda makes her want to punch a wall.

She settles for taunting Clarisse and fighting. She does a lot of fighting, pushing herself further with every twist of her waist and strike of her dagger. Some of the Ares kids start avoiding her. 

Every summer is just more of the same, this one is just worse than most. She keeps telling herself that. She’s gotten through so much and she can get through everything else she needs to get through. Alone. She doesn’t need Percy to get through this. She’s gotten too fucking dependent on him, she barely knows where the 8 year old girl she used to be went.

Clarisse la Rue is back from the battle too, spending her time prowling around the camp like a caged animal. The everpresent glint of something mischievous is gone from her eyes, replaced by something sharper. She buzzed her hair a week after they all got back and it’s slowly growing out. Looks unkempt and maybe the Ares kids can deal with that, but it pisses Annabeth off.

“Hey meathead,” Annabeth says, then takes a bite of her coleslaw sandwich. Claisse slowly raises her hair, brows furrowed.

“What, pretty boy.” Her brown eyes are dark and angry. Annabeth used to think they looked like chocolate.

“Are you going to do your hair again?” She mimes running a pair of clippers up her scalp and Clarisse smirks. 

“You gonna help me? Last time I just found a razor in the Hephaestus cabin but I heard you guys’ve basically got a whole barbershop.”

“Why didn’t you ask Selina?” Annabeth asks, folding herself down to sit in the dirt behind Clarisse. They’re a short trek into the woods because if any of the little campers see Clarisse doing something as human as getting her haircut, all her street rep will be gone. At least, that’s what Clarisse said.

“Selina was busy.” Clarisse stretches her feet out in front of her, steel-toed boots kicking at scattered pine needles. Annabeth supposes that makes sense. Selina is the only person Clarisse hangs out with outside of Chris Rodriguez, and beyond her Annabeth might be the closest to a friend Clarisse has. They’ve both been at camp forever, and they understand each other as much as anyone else does. “Me an’ the Aphrodite cabin… we don’t really get along. Buncha gossips, you know, and the second one of ‘em sees something all the rest know. At least it wasn’t the Hermes kids.”

Annabeth waits for her to elaborate. Clarisse doesn’t, and Annabeth switches the clippers on and starts at the nape of the other girl’s neck. The buzzing is loud in the silence, but Annabeth can still hear when Clarisse starts to talk.

“Selina’s just… she’s tall and bright and happy. She makes me happy, and I don’t get fucking happy, you know?” Annabeth hums and brushes a knuckle over Clarisse’s ear, watching a few strands of hair blow away. “But I miss her even when she’s there, and she makes me angry all the time, because I can’t have her. I can’t ever actually have her.” There’s a little bit of a snarl in Clarisse’s voice. “I just get so fucking jealous, you know? Everyone else wants her and she has  _ him _ , even when she’s making out with me during capture the flag. I don’t have anyone else.”

Annabeth thinks about Percy and she slowly drags the clippers around the back of Clarisse’s ear. “I get it.”

“I just feel like I’m the background character in her life. Some kinda butch horror story, just there to show her how bad it is to be closeted. I don’t get anything good in this story. I’m going to die young and angry and she’s going to live forever in some kind of picket fence fever dream with Charles and two point five kids.” Clarisse kicks at the dirt and shakes her head a little. Annabeth scowls.

“Stop moving your fucking head, dumbass.”

“Sorry, bitch. Just angry.”

“Aren’t we all?”

Clarisse grunts in agreement, and then there’s silence.

“I’m always the jealous one, you know? I build myself so high hoping someone will look at me and turn so green with envy they’d blend in with the algae, but I’m always the one who wants what I don’t have.” Annabeth clicks off the buzzing clippers and puts them back in the case, standing up and dusting off her shorts. “I want him to be the jealous one.”

Clarisse stands up a moment later and turns to face the daughter of Athena. There’s pine needles caught in the pocket of her cargo shorts and her muscle tank is untucked but she doesn’t seem to care. “How vindictive.”

“I didn’t think you knew that word.”

“You called me it once,” Clarisse says, and her eyes are still hard and angry, but there’s something brighter in them. Maybe they’re both mean, but maybe that’s okay. They’re never going to be perfect. Clarisse steps closer, pushing Annabeth up against the trunk of a tree. “You want to make someone else jealous?”

Annabeth wraps the hem of Clarisse’s tank top around one hand. “I think that you’re a dick.”

Kissing Clarisse is very different than kissing Percy was, probably because Clarisse actually knows what she’s doing. Her teeth are sharp and she pushes against Annabeth like there’s something she  _ needs,  _ so Annabeth pushes back. Her mouth strays, biting at Annabeth’s earlobe and kissing down her jaw. Annabeth moans, very quietly, and Clarisse smirks against her collarbone.

“Doesn’t mean anything,” Clarisse says, helping Annabeth rebutton her shirt and straightening her own headband. Her lips are a little swollen and she looks defensive. “Selina is…”

Annabeth offers Clarisse some chapstick. Burt’s bees. “No, I get it. Doesn’t mean anything.”

“I think I love her,” Clarisse says desperately, “but it’s harder for her. She doesn’t look-” Clarisse gestures to all 5 foot 4 of herself. “-you know. She has a boyfriend. I-”

“Yeah, it’s okay. I’m not looking for a relationship with anyone but-” Annabeth shrugs. “You know.”

Clarisse snorts. “Can’t believe you’d chose that pile of seaweed over  _ this.” _

“You haven’t showered in four days,” Annabeth says, starting to walk back to camp, “and you smell like Axe body spray.”

“Whatever, nerd.” Clarisse shoulders Annabeth off the trail. “All the Ares kids do.”

**Author's Note:**

> wowee i'm really writing femslash pjo fic in 2020!! heck
> 
> some notes:  
> -it makes me very happy how mean and flawed annabeth is like! she's a bitch and i love her  
> -i haven't read pjo since i was in like, 5th grade so this is going off my memories and the maybe three passages i reread. also the synopsis on the wiki. i was like there is NOT enough teenager messy sexuality stuff in here and obviously it's for children but i want annabeth to be bi and i want her to make out with clarisse la rue because its MY self-indulgent fic and i make the rules.  
> -umm clarisse isn't dating chris (as said in tags) because what the FUCK?? no she's a dyke. selina is because that added the dynamics this fic needed, even tho i didn't go in depth abt it. selina is just a really good person and she's figuring some things out and that happens to mean not being a good girlfriend.  
> -the selina/clarisse dynamic makes me think of peter and jason from bare: a pop opera. like clarisse is the Gay One and selina is the popular one everyone likes who's going to end up with the heterosexual fantasy life, you know? and i think that's hard for clarisse.  
> -i'm a firm believer in a) the homoeroticism of buzzing someone's hair and b) the poetry of insulting each other and then making out?? good. they're messy and trying and can u tell that's the point of this fic??  
> -also low-key mood for this fic is like... grlwood's _i sold my soul to the devil when i was 12_ crossed with uhhh lana del ray.  
> -please comment and kudos!! they make me so happy :) i've also got another pjo fic in the works that's more 'annabeth's sexuality crisis' oriented and also features rachel elizabeth dare so if you're interesting that's maybe coming.  
> -ALSO follow me on tumblr.com i am. gay. and [@lazypigeon](https://lazypigeon.tumblr.com/)


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